Her Side, Part 2

(EDITOR’S NOTE- In an effort to remove some of the stagnating WordPress pages on my domain, I am reposting some old content here. This novella originally was posted June 9, 2009. Her Side is not for kids. At all. Learn more here. )

Where are you going?
Away, to the hills.
By yourself, alone? You’ll die!
You’re closer to death than I am.
~Hazel and Fiver, Watership Down

As I stood outside tall iron gate of The Hutchins School for Exceptional Teens, the iron curlicues winked dully at me. They didn’t have a comforting edge; these were dull tips meant for bludgeoning.

I played Dungeons and Dragons when I was younger, before Chester Killian advised Senator Daddy that his religious following wouldn’t approve of even a hint at a demonic action in his daughter. So I quit. I had played a special bard called a Blade- she was perfect with her weapons, so beautiful and graceful. I’d always thought the rules for clerics to not be able to carry edged weapons was bullshit; they could beat people to a pulp with their clubs, but if they broke the skin, their god would be mad. I always thought a crushed skull was much more horrific than a clean stabbing, but no one ever accused me of understanding morals in D&D.

We had many arguments about “good” – I maintained you could have good assassin, if she disposed of evil people. My dungeon master disagreed. I thought idly about those days while we drove up the hill toward The Hutch. The dice, the character sheets, and how I’d felt more real as Lilith Crescendo the Blade than I ever had as Clara the politician’s daughter.

Lilith’s character sheet was in my bag. I had been allowed to grab my personal notebook to take with me to The Hutch. I was allowed very little in the way of personal belongings – if anything had an edge, they wouldn’t let me take it with me. But they let me take my dice, Lilith’s character sheet, and the other secret things in my notebook. I still wonder if Chester went through it when he was packing up my
room. He clearly found all my edges and confiscated them, the prick. I couldn’t even find the tiny Swiss Army knife that hung off my
backpack. But the notebook had personal notes, private thoughts, photos, all sorts of things in it. I kept the first love note I’d ever
gotten, when I was 14, from a boy named John. Full of misspellings and wishes to go behind the bleachers and kiss me. I had other character sheets from D&D, a top 100 list of, to quote Douglas Adams, people would would be first against the wall when the revolution comes, and two pictures of my mother.

Senator Daddy would not have approved of any of these.

Which made me realize that Chester had not peeked. I hugged the bag tighter to me, keeping my secrets, my last bit of comfort, away from
Chester. He was talking, but then,  he was always talking. I realized that now that he was talking about my future, I should probably pay
attention.

“You’ll be there for eight weeks for therapy,” Chester said, his eyes flicking from the road to the rearview mirror, and then back to the
road. “Both personal and group therapy, then treatment, and evaluation. If you have shown progress at the end of the eight weeks
then I will be there to visit and have a meeting with the Headmaster and you, and we’ll determine together whether you’re ready to come
home.”

I’d seen how they’d packed up my room. Even the stuff I wasn’t taking with me was in boxes. I wasn’t coming home and they knew it. The only question was what they were going to do with me if I ever did get out of the Hutch.

I was scared. I’ll say that here, but I never would tell Chester.

“Hey. Clara. This is your life we’re talking about, here. Think you could show a little interest?” he asked, meeting my eyes in the rearview. His were muddy green, a creepy stare that always made me uncomfortable.

“Does it matter? The decisions are already made for me,” I said, looking back out the window.

His voice got the calm, soothing aspect to it that sounded like he was talking to an excitable dog. That’s one thing I hated about him; you couldn’t make Chester angry.

Well. Except for the time he found me. He was pretty angry then. But it was probably because of the mess.

“You are the master of your own life, Clara,” he said in his soothing voice. “You make your own decisions, decide your own path.”

I ground my teeth instead of asking why the hell I was being taken to a boarding school against my will. It was pointless.

“After we make sure you’re… better… we’ll see what choices you have in front of you. I can help you make those choices.”

“Yeah, cause you’ve helped out with so many choices up to now,” I said. I clutched my bag tighter. I thought about Lilith Crescendo. Like a ninja, Lilith had been able to turn anything into a weapon. Once she’d been captured and deprived of everything but a book to read. She’d killed her captor with a piece of paper. (I’d rolled a natural 20 on the attack, else it wouldn’t have worked.) I knew that was impossible in the real world.

But I did know from experience that paper could cut. And I hugged my bag with my notebook to my chest. My anchor to keep me from floating away. My life preserver to keep me from drowning. And my confidant to keep me from going mad.

Funny that I was going to a madhouse.

As I stood outside tall iron gate of The Hutchins School for Exceptional Teens, the iron curlicues winked dully at me. They didn’t have a comforting edge; these were dull tips meant for bludgeoning. But it was OK. I had edges with me.

I was prepared.

Prepared.